


Sometimes Our Saints Are Sinners

by kyanve



Series: Truce [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blue will absolutely hold the beer to watch this, Coran is actual space dad, Fluff, Gen, Shiro will fuss over everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: Lance one-shot for Truce, set just after Taking Flight and Chapter 4 of Truce.  Lance worries about not measuring up to the legendary reputation of the old Paladins after almost losing Blue -And Blue and Coran set the record straight about just how Serious, Stoic, and Absolutely Not Involved In Shenanigans Alfor and Lance's predecessor really were.





	Sometimes Our Saints Are Sinners

After the rescue his dignity hadn’t really survived, they’d all been roped into working on learning to work the bridge. It wasn’t like it wasn’t important, even if the flurry of Altaean screens and symbols still melted into gibberish, but he was still glad to get off the bridge and get some time away as soon as there was an opening.

Blue purred when he walked into the hangar, even if he was hanging by the door, suddenly unsure about everything; when he shuffled his feet and considered turning around, the lion only purred louder, and it didn’t help the memory of all the times his mother and father had gotten after him to apologize and do something to fix it when he messed up and hurt someone, even accidentally.

Not only did Blue not seem upset with how close that’d come, the lion actually seemed to find the entire thing hilarious - he really hadn’t expected the ancient pseudo-mystical living machine to be the type to answer ‘hold my beer and watch this’ with ‘wait let me get the camera’, but apparently she was.

And as if to punctuate that, the lion crouched down, jaws opening for him.

He leaned back, giving the lion a skeptical sideways look. “You know, I’d think you’d have been more mad about that, considering you’re the one who almost got kidnapped.”

The response was the closest mechanical-big-cat equivalent to a chirp.

He shrugged, and walked into the cockpit, draping over the pilot seat as the lion settled back standing, having apparently already filed the entire incident under ‘things to look back on and laugh’.

“Is it really that much of a novelty to have a Paladin who gets suckered into dumb trouble by a pretty face?”

His head was full of the impression of laughter, and that not only was it not novel, it was like a return to _normalcy_.

“So you’re saying you’ve got a type?” He gave the side of the pilot’s seat an affectionate pat as the lion purred.

That was kind of the point of the thing, even though there was an odd layer to it where the lion’s definition of it didn’t mesh with what the humans might’ve been looking for or noticing.

And Blue was certain that he didn’t need to be ‘perfect’ or try to never make mistakes.

“Yanno, I’m glad you’re okay, but that kinda was dumb.”

Blue did not disagree at all.

There was, however, a string of faint impressions of voices, distant bits of memory. Most of it was one particular deep, rumbling voice, increasingly exasperated, with occasional others.

“ _I can’t believe that actually worked-_ ”

“ _I am never letting the two of you out of my sight unsupervised Ever. Again._ ”

“ _Well it worked._ ”

“ _YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE TALKING THEM OUT OF DOING SOMETHING STUPID, NOT ENCOURAGING THEM!_ ”

“ _That does it, I’m getting a leash._ ”

“ _I’m not letting you drive me to drinking because if I did I would never be sober again._ ”

“ _Where have you - nevermind I don’t want to know don’t answer that._ ”

“ _We are not making a betting pool on-… … 500 on him not figuring out until after we get back to the Castle._ ”

Even if there was a sort of wistful nostalgia to it that had grief tangled in, it was a mess of tiny glimmers of someone else’s mostly happy memories, close friends and an assurance for many years that everything would work out okay in the end.

It was weirdly comforting; everything they’d heard about the previous Paladins so far had been tiny bits that were mostly reverent, distant heroes that did impossible things where all of them were somehow expected to live up to it. The Old Paladins worked as a seamless unit. The Old Paladins would’ve gotten past that training easily. The Old Paladins could’ve demolished things they had trouble with.

Blue sharing them being every bit as much dumbasses as the current team sometimes made it feel less like he was some tiny intrusion on a grand legacy.

Blue was convinced the two were not mutually exclusive - legends that did impossible things were also people who did dumb things, went out drinking, and didn’t always know what they were doing. They were just getting started but she thought it was a good start, maybe a better start.

Someday he needed to look up if there were any records of the old Paladins - maybe not right now; Allura and Coran tried not to let on, but it wasn’t hard to guess they were still grieving, and seeking that out felt like it’d be intruding on them.

Something in the hangar caught the lion’s attention, and she brought up a screen to show Coran walking in and looking around; that only lasted a beat before she was kneeling down to let Lance out, nudging him to go.

Coran was at the end of the ramp, as if there were some old routine to waiting outside the lions after they started moving in the hangar.

“There you are! I thought I’d come see how you were doing, after all of that.”

Lance smiled, stretching. “Thanks. I’m actually doing pretty okay, just thought I’d check up on Blue.” He stepped down off the ramp, and Blue closed her jaws, standing back straight with a purr.

“Glad to hear it.” Coran clapped his shoulder. “You know, that bailout really reminded me of when I was younger.”

“What, you get stuck chasing after whoever was in that lion before me?” Lance gave a weak, lopsided grin; he wasn’t sure what would be overstepping bounds, but Coran seemed to be in more of a mood to actually talk about the past, so it probably would be okay.

Coran just laughed. “Well, yes, but this goes back before the lions had been built, back when I was your age.”

“So how much trouble did you get in?” It was a guess, after that quip about ‘the perils of youth’ while the others were getting him loose of the handcuffs and Hunk was teasing him about other incidents.

“Not so much myself - see, at that age, I took everything too seriously. Took a few decaphoebs and a few other influences to drag me out of that, and by the time I’d started appreciating what I had, I’d had plenty of time to learn from their occasional bad examples.” Coran chuckled, shaking his head. “No, I was usually the one doing the bailing out and complaining about bad ideas, but I happened to know someone… friendly, outgoing, curious, empathetic, silver tongue and far less self-preservation instinct than you have.”

He paused, with a wistful, distant lopsided grin. “For a long time while Allura was growing you could blackmail Alfor by threatening to tell her about things he’d done when he was younger.”

It took that a second to sink in, and Lance sputtered in disbelief, eyes wide. “Wait - _King Alfor_?! You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope! He got into just about every possible _kind_ of trouble, and when Melenor - Allura’s mother - came along and got his attention, it didn’t really stop him…just narrowed out a few avenues for it and meant someone else was making sure he stayed in one piece. Before that, he ran me pretty well ragged.”

“So wait. Did he ever get into…” Lance trailed off, making a few gestures trying to put across what he just got out of, but not quite wanting to ask if Alfor’d ever needed to be rescued from the same kind of bad decisions before he’d ended up in a stable relationship.

“Yep.” Coran nodded. “I’m not sure all of his flirting was intentional, but he also wasn’t averse to the attention if someone else started it. He also didn’t develop a working sense for picking up on ill intentions that weren’t obvious until he was a little older, and even then for a good while he could catch the slightest plot in a diplomatic setting and then miss an obvious trap in downtime.” Coran gave a fondly exasperated sigh, and Lance was left fighting not to laugh at the image of King Alfor of Altaea, Creator of the Lions, Great Legendary Hero needing rescued from getting handcuffed to a tree somewhere.

Thankfully Coran just seemed quietly amused by it.

“Honestly considering some of what _else_ he got into, I think the romantic misadventures were usually the easier ones.” Coran rolled his eyes, and a moment later had a small light screen in front of him from some device or another, pulling up a picture of some kind of strange, semi-abstract statue with glowing stones set in it on a rocky hilltop, the rest of the landscape stretching out around.

Lance could pick out Coran in the back of the trio, although it was strange seeing him that young, hair grown out and half-shaved, gangly-muscled and full of seething frustration; the two in front of him were both grinning proudly, another Altaean ‘teenager’ with white hair pulled back and a girl with pale violet hair. Alfor and the girl both were juggling some kind of Altean devices; Lance had no idea what they were.

“They wanted to go investigate energy readings on some obscure shrines on a planet out of our normal range.” Coran waited a beat. “That planet was enemy territory at the time - if the wrong ship had gone too close, we all could’ve ended up dead or in even worse trouble if they’d recognized Alfor. Naturally he decided that meant he had to get his little drone to document the whole thing.”

“Man, I have pictures where Hunk has the _exact_ expression you’ve got here.” There were a lot of them, and if he’d gotten pictures around when they’d decided to go tail Pidge the night Shiro’s pod came down, he’d have a few more, he was sure. “Who’s she?”

Some of Coran’s cheer dimmed. “One of our old schoolmates - the three of us were some of the best and brightest students in our fields for sciences. We lost touch later on.” It felt like more of a story and one where it wasn’t something Coran was ready to go into, at least as far as what’d happened. Lance briefly regretted asking; it wasn’t like he didn’t know that almost everybody Coran ever knew was dead. “She was better at long-term planning than Alfor, but had the same complete lack of fear he did, and their studies overlapped enough for them to be collaborating a lot before he ended up traveling more on other duties and she started doing more lab work.”

He motioned back at the picture.

“So things like this happened, where Alfor mentioned some theory about these shrines, and I expected her to back me up that it wasn’t a good idea, only she started making plans, and then they were off and I couldn’t just let them go by themselves.”

It meant the hilarious mental image of Coran in Hunk’s place for some of their shenanigans, and realizing that he was doomed if Coran ever talked to Hunk about this, because Hunk had _stories_.

And thanks to Hunk referencing some of them back by the spring, Coran had to know that.

There was an impending doom in that, and Lance decided to ignore it for the time being.

“So you guys kinda were up to the same kind of things we were back at the Garrison.”

Coran rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Sneaking out after lights-out, messing with equipment to prank instructors, occasional mornings here and there where one could make a game out of guessing where the other would be coming from-”, Coran paused at that, snapping his fingers as if suddenly reminded of something else, and rolled his eyes. “Oh and don’t get me started on some of the diversions and shenanigans I had to come up with when we started military training.”

Lance was trying to cover a laugh behind one hand, but it didn’t entirely work. “Yep, that about covers it.” Hell, it was how they’d gotten to space in the first place, technically, even if Pidge had been on a different agenda. “I mean, none of us had the royalty thing to get ourselves out of trouble if we ever got caught, but we were good at not getting caught. The Garrison’s security was nothing after getting past Mama.”

“Oh, him being royalty made it _worse_ \- if we’d gotten caught we both would’ve been in all kinds of trouble, and they would’ve started putting security details on us. He was supposed to be learning to function outside of his rank, but that didn’t mean they wanted him put at unnecessary risk, and … putting himself at risk was one of Alfor’s less heralded great talents.” Coran shook his head. “He got so good at sneaking around places because of it that there were jokes about how his true calling would’ve been espionage if he’d been able to plan ahead better.”

Lance waited a moment, sliding to hop up unto Blue’s claw; so far the whole thing was mostly just fond reminiscence that he probably didn’t get to do often at all, although Coran was starting to trail off more distant.

He’d have to remember to get Coran talking about their younger days more often, when he was up for nostalgia more than mourning; it wasn’t something Coran would be able to talk about the same way with Allura.

Maybe not more right now; he’d stayed silent a little too long, and Lance had a feeling it was probably a good time for a distraction. “You know that’s what we were doing when everything started? I mean, me and Pidge and Hunk, at least.”

Coran almost started, glancing up to where Lance was sitting with a raised eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, Hunk and I were sneaking out to go goof off, then we saw Pidge sneaking off up to the rooftop and got curious about it - that’s how we saw Shiro coming in. We used to slip out of the dorms all the time and they never caught us once.” He puffed up proudly.

“You know, Alfor doing that did turn out to be damn good practice for getting around when the stakes were a little higher.” Coran gave him a lopsided smile. “Not that he exactly stopped deciding to drag me with him because he got curious and wanted to sneak off to nose around; there were several times we almost caused diplomatic incidents that way, and I think after about the fourth time -”

Coran stopped in mid sentence, halting himself on whatever the next word had almost been.

For a moment his expression half-soured into a snarled, almost pained mess, then he shook his head, tone dropping much more subdued. “Well, there were jokes about subdermal tracking devices and a couple times it looked like Melenor almost got asked for permission for them.”

The nostalgia had definitely broken into eggshells and sharp bits of glass.

Their team was still pretty new, and Lance knew there was still a lot where they barely knew each other. He was still working through Shiro the decorated legendary pilot that sometimes mentored for cadets as someone that was sharing living space and occasionally found at odd hours half-awake staring at the food machine as if he wasn’t sure what dimension he was in, he was sort-of used to Pidge but was getting to work in discovering that they had known her even less than they’d thought, Keith was more tolerable than Lance had expected after the Garrison but still kind of like poking an angry stray alleycat, and Allura and Coran were… well, aliens. Even if Hunk was the only one he knew _well_ , it was hard to wrap his head around the idea of even one of them dying, and painful in a distressing chest-achey kind of way to think about.

And Coran had lived through _everyone_ except Allura dying as just a start.

“Subject change time?”, he offered with a weak, sympathetic smile.

Coran straightened, quietly clearing his throat into a curled hand. “Maybe for a little while.”

“You know if we ever get back to Earth, we’ve gotta take you to some of the places we used to sneak out to. There’s this little diner in the town by the Garrison? Been there over a hundred years, they slow-cook their own chili and make some of the best milkshakes in that part of the country.”

The subject change seemed to help, in spite of - or maybe because of - Coran not having any idea what chili or milkshakes were. They veered off for a while into Lance getting nudged into detail about the diner, the other little hole in the wall restaurants Hunk had hauled him out hunting him down, and the rest of the Arizona town by the Garrison, and from there to Veradero Beach, the street of Italian restaurants, and everything else in their corner of Cuba.

It did start veering into talk of home, although that was a continual effort to not just drop off into homesickness. He desperately missed even just the possibility of visiting home, was clinging to the belief that one day they’d make enough headway that they could visit without just drawing the wrong attention to Earth, but Earth and Cuba were at least still _there_ ; there was that possibility he could go home, and Coran didn’t even have that.

Coran’s offer of trying to introduce them to Altean food one day was probably a good sign for Coran’s mood, but was still horrifying. Lance still wasn’t sure if Altean sense of taste was that different, or if Coran was just someone who never should be allowed near a kitchen.

Things had trailed around to where Lance was about to bring up heading to bed when the hangar door opened, Shiro pausing in the doorway, suddenly looking unsure. 

"Ah. Is - this a bad time?"

Coran waved Shiro's awkward moment off, motioning for him to come in. "No, not at all! We were just reminiscing a bit."

Lance wanted to shrink; it was a little harder to face Shiro after what had just almost happened, but Shiro somehow seemed more worried than upset with him. 

"I just thought I'd check in, after everything." Shiro tipped his head toward Lance, and Coran gave a knowing nod. 

  
"Well, I'll leave you to it then!" Coran patted Blue's claw, and turned on one heel to head out the door behind Shiro.

  
Lance edged back on Blue's paw, shrinking in with a quiet, nervous laugh. "I kinda screwed up, didn't I."

  
"Yeah." Shiro gave a half-shrug. "I'm just glad everybody came out of it okay." His gesture included both Lance and Blue. 

  
"Yeah, she's acting like it's the funniest thing ever." He rolled his eyes, quietly trying to shift attention onto his lion. 

  
Shiro chuckled, but then walked over to lean on the lion's claw, Lance's attempt at shifting focus off of himself failing soundly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

  
Lance sank into his jacket. "I guess? I mean, it's not like I got knocked out in a fight or anything. I didn't even get anywhere." Even if he made a show about sulking over that, it honestly would've been more uncomfortable. "She said she had something to show me and to hold out my hands, and the next thing I knew, I was handcuffed to the tree and they were taking off with Blue."

Shiro nodded. "That's a relief. We're all lucky that didn't go worse."

  
That brought back the ball of guilt in Lance's throat. "Yeah." He'd gotten careless and ignored Hunk's advice and gotten distracted, and almost got all of them screwed over; he could've ended up dead or handed over to Zarkon, or worse, Blue could've been handed over.

  
"Hey." Shiro rapped lightly on Blue's claw for Lance's attention. "It's over, and the important thing is just to watch out so it doesn't happen again, okay?" 

  
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I guess this means no more flirting or hanging out with the aliens." Besides sucking all the fun out of Space Adventures, he wasn't even sure he could hold himself to it - besides, there had to be times it'd be safe.

  
For a moment, there was the distant kind of exasperated stare Shiro'd gotten around his attempts at hitting on the princess, and he knew Shiro was considering his answer before Shiro let out a sigh. "I don't know if I'd go that far. Just try to be careful about what you let people into, alright? Don't go off with someone away from the Castle or somewhere we're all sure is safe, and don't let anybody we're not sure of into places where they might be able to do damage." 

  
Lance gave him a sideways stare, trying to decide how far that really went. "You sure about that?"  
"Completely. Besides, there's more than just the Galra out there - we're going to need all the help we can get, and it'll be good to have someone who can make friends. I know there's other rebels out there somewhere, there's going to be planets and people we're rescuing, and people who're just afraid to move right now that could use a few more friendly faces." He reached up with his good hand to pat the toe of Lance's shoe, which was about all he could reach with Lance sitting up on the Lion's foot. "Remember how Allura said the old Paladins used to be diplomats?"

  
'Diplomat' conjured up images for Lance of suits and stuffy meetings and Big State Negotiations, but he nodded anyway with a lopsided attempt at a smile. "You really think I'd be cut out for that sort of thing?"

"I'm sure of it." 

  
It was easy to see why Shiro'd been the one the Garrison used as a representative; it was hard not to believe whatever he was saying when he smiled like that. Blue was in the back of his head, doing the mental equivalent of bolding and underlining all of it, adding absolute confidence about it being 'the best part of being a paladin'. 

  
"...Thanks." Lance leaned back, propping up on Blue's massive paw; the lion's head loomed above him. "Say, Shiro. You ever think about what the old Paladins must've been like?" 

  
Shiro blinked, going awkward. "Honestly, I've been a bit preoccupied for it so far - why?"

  
"Blue said this isn't the first time that kind of thing's happened. So did Coran. The way they talked about it, it's kinda sad we couldn't get to meet them." Really, he could only hope that one day they might match the kind of easy, warm camaraderie that'd come through in what Blue had shared, even through the exasperated voice of what must've been Shiro's predecessor fondly complaining about the others getting in trouble. It was a little hard to picture goofing off with Keith like that - Keith would probably try to take his arm off if he touched the guy - but Pidge wasn't so bad when she let herself relax, and Shiro seemed like he could use some time to relax. So did the Princess, for that matter.

"It figures." Shiro had a knowing tone, and Lance was sure there were Stories that he desperately wanted to hear, but Shiro went weirdly pensive and he wasn't going to get them. "If the Lions got along with them, then I'm sure they'd be proud of everyone here, following in their footsteps."

  
Blue gave an audible purr, and gave Lance the mental equivalent of an affectionate headbutt with the attached sense that the last Blue Paladin would've loved him and pretty much adopted him.

It was surreal. He was some random kid from Cuba who'd managed to get into the space program; he'd done pretty well, even if he wasn't top of the class like some people, but he hadn't done _great_ , and now some big god-beast and one of his heroes were telling him that some ancient legendary alien hero would've been proud of him - and that the same legendary hero was just as dumb and prone to getting into things.

"You think if we get better at talking to the lions, that they can tell us about them? Like, more than little sound bites and impressions?"

  
"Probably?" Shiro shrugged, looking distant for a moment, and then frowned oddly. "I guess Blue's more talkative than Black about that." There was something else, but whatever it was, Shiro wasn't saying it, and Blue had gone quiet, only to return to cheerful fussing when she realized Lance had noticed. 

  
Well, it wasn't like they didn't know something horrible had to've happened to the last Paladins. They were immortal god-beasts and all, but the way the attachment worked, it had to be hard on them too, having people that they were sharing bits of themselves with die like that.

Blue nudged away from it - not denying it, but pushing toward other things; there had been good times before, and there would be good times now and in the future. They were back, and they'd make sure things were better.

  
And the lion thought shenanigans sometimes were good for everyone, _especially_ when other things were awful. 

**Author's Note:**

> I did end up expanding on Coran's story about Alfor in Pray That There's Intelligent Life, and yes, for those who hadn't read that, that was Honerva with them. 
> 
> Blue's old-paladin echoes are as follows:  
> Alfor  
> Zarkon (to Alfor and Blaytz)  
> Blaytz  
> Zarkon (to Trigel, about Blaytz and Alfor)  
> Zarkon  
> Zarkon  
> Zarkon (to Blaytz)  
> Zarkon (to Blaytz, Gyrgan, and Trigel, about Alfor)
> 
> And yes, I do have notes on the stories behind some of those and they will be showing up in the old-gen fic/possibly get referenced somewhere in Truce-series.
> 
> The awful funny part is that I started this before either of the other one-shots and only just got around to finishing it.


End file.
